


Perfect

by kvothess



Series: Mixtape [1]
Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Cheating, Implied Sexual Content, Light Angst, M/M, One Shot, Sad with a Happy Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-15
Updated: 2019-12-15
Packaged: 2021-02-25 22:21:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,913
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21802876
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kvothess/pseuds/kvothess
Summary: It wasn’t like Donghyuck noticed it at once. Actually, not even when he found out he was very surprised. For a while he had started feeling something weird, something like an emptiness in his stomach that said that something was different, something was not normal. But he let it pass as just a bad feeling in a bad day. Except that the feeling remained, constant and loud until everything started to make sense.• Based on the lyrics of 'Perfect' by Selena Gomez
Relationships: Lee Donghyuck | Haechan/Mark Lee
Series: Mixtape [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2107407
Comments: 8
Kudos: 56





	Perfect

**Author's Note:**

> That's a really short history that wrote simply because I wanted to read something inspired by Perfect.  
> This fic was not beta-ed and I just kinda translated/adapted it straight from the orginal one I wrote in portuguese so if it has some spelling mistakes: I'm sorryyy. And if it has some grammar mistakes please tell me!!
> 
> This is the first time in like? 10 years? that I wrote something and honestly I don't even know why I'm posting it but oh well ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
> 
> → WARNINGS: this is a history that contains cheating and a reeeally mild mention of an anxiety attack? so if you don't feel confortable with this please be careful! ←

It wasn’t like Donghyuck noticed it at once. Actually, not even when he found out he was very surprised. For a while he had started feeling something weird, something like an emptiness in his stomach that said that something was different, something was not normal. But he let it pass as just a bad feeling on a bad day. Except that the feeling remained there, constant and loud until everything started to make sense.

Donghyuck and Mark have been together for three years. They met at a start of semester party. Mark was in his 3rd semester of journalism and Donghyuck on his 2nd of biology. They kinda had a crazy connection. They spotted each other across a table and it was like the air got heavy, tense and everything got hot and cold at the same time. Mark averted his eyes, looking down, kinda shy and perhaps kinda taken away by the sudden rush of unnamed feelings and Donghyuck was the one who moved forward and said almost too casually “Hi. I'm Donghyuck. Biology. Single. You?” and Mark laughed and replied. When he said that he was also single, Donhyuck might or might not have thanked a superior entity that he did not really believe. Both of them talked during the party and at some point, when they were laughing together, Mark carefully placed his hand on Donghyuck’s face and moved to kiss him slowly, all lazy and happy. The rest was history.

After going on a few random and spontaneous dates during six months, Mark asked Donghyuck if he wanted to date for real, to have a serious relationship. Hyuck smiled and said yes, of course he wanted that and Mark smiled, smiled and smiled, beautiful like the prettiest star in the sky. Seven months later they were living together.

On some days Donghyuck would wake up a little earlier than Mark to watch his serene face while sleeping. The curve of his lips, the shape of his eyebrows, how the sunlight hit his cheekbones so deliciously and created the prettiest colors and shadows. And then Donghyuck would think about how he was happy, how lucky he was to be with that man, with that amazing human being.

The next few years passed quickly and smoothly. They had to deal with stress from final thesis and graduations, some intense and abusive internships and chaotic first jobs, but now everything was calm like a lake during a windless day. Donghyuck and Mark were to each other the longest relationship they've ever had and when some of their friends commented about that, both of them would laugh and say “We're also kinda surprised. I think our madness goes well together and balances everything out” and everybody would laugh and love their love.

Their relationship wasn’t fake or just pretend, it actually worked out very well. It constantly felt like they were back to those early days, in that party three years ago when they met and kinda fell in love at first sight. The easy days, the sneaky smiles to each other, the dazzled eyes. Their relationship was honestly some kind of dream even to themselves. But then one day Hyuck noticed that he couldn't see those moments around them anymore. He lost it at some moment and didn’t really know what happened. Then he started to ask himself what happened. He still loved Mark. He still loves Mark. And he also loves him back. So what’s wrong? It didn’t make sense. And that emptiness in his stomach felt like it was doing cartwheels.

One day, Hyuck woke up a little early and while watching Mark, heard his name coming out slightly muffled from Mark’s mouth. It was such a low mutter that it almost seemed like another name. Donghyuck smiled full of love but the cold emptiness within him seemed to get a little heavier.

A few weeks later, Hyuck was wrapped on Mark on the sofa after coming back from work, talking to each other about whatever was on TV, when he noticed that his boyfriend’s smell was slightly different. It was still his heavy and warm honey scent but it had something else in between. A little sharp hint of cinnamon? Donghyuck wasn’t sure but something was different. He didn’t say anything but asked himself if Mark had changed any perfume or shampoo recently. Maybe it was one of his office’s friends perfume?

Nights later, when they both were in bed, breathing heavily, holding each other closely and fogging the windows, Hyuck noticed how Mark seemed almost distracted, almost not really there in the moment they were sharing. He took his hands away from Mark’s back to hold his face and look at him, directly and deeply, and found an unusual emptiness that was quickly replaced when Mark focused on his face. He smiled weakly and lovingly like nothing was different - and really? Was something different? Hyuck wasn’t sure - and lowered his face to kiss Donghyuck. Everything was the same, his kiss was still the same: slow, lazy and happy. But there was something else. Something distant, not normal and despite that, Hyuck didn’t want to keep focusing on that and instead, shifted his focus to Mark’s mouth that was slipping from his own to his neck. The bedroom was still hot and heavy for quite a while but the cold feeling in Donghyuck's stomach grew heavy once more.

One Thursday, Donghyuck was able to leave his job at the lab earlier and decided to surprise Mark. He went to a flower shop and got a single sunflower. He also went to a bakery and got some of the assorted cookies that they loved to eat sometimes. When he was getting near Mark’s work he watched as his boyfriend left his office and got into a cab with a coworker - What was his name? Yukhei? Hyuck was almost sure it was. For some reason Donghyuck stopped on his tracks, not moving forward or calling after them. When he saw the other man lowering his face to kiss Mark, Hyuck almost didn’t feel anything. When he saw Mark smiling lazily and happily back at him, - with one hand holding his face - Donghyuck almost didn’t notice how the cold and heavy feeling in his stomach was finally released, climbing all the way up to his chest. When the taxi left and turned away a few streets later, Hyuck was already walking back to the subway where he could go home.

When he arrived at his apartment, he put the sunflower in a glass with water over the counter. He arranged the assorted cookies on a plate and put it in front of the flower. Donghyuck then went to shower, put on his pajamas and sat on the couch. Only then he started thinking how everything now made sense. How the name Mark whispered in this sleep a few weeks earlier was actually someone else's. Yukhei and Hyuck could sound quite similar when muttered by a sleeping person, right? How the different smells blending recently with Mark's own actually belonged to a specific person. How he gave distant touches, empty kisses and had glazed over eyes even when they were making love - everything made sense now.

There wasn’t anything in Donghyuck that made him want to cry. He wasn’t shocked. He wasn’t angry or sad. He actually felt almost happy to finally understand and get rid of that awful feeling that made home in him many months before. Now that everything was clear, Hyuck stood up from the couch and went to his bed where he had a nice and comfortable sleep like he didn’t have in quite a while. He woke up a few hours later when he heard Mark arriving home and walking slowly to their bedroom. He felt his body dipping the bed, his hand caressing his hair and the soft kiss he placed on his temple. Donghyuck smiled a little, slightly awake and slightly asleep as he heard Mark saying “Thank you for the flower and the cookies. I love you sunshine.” and then, still smiling, he went back to sleep.

It took a while but Donghyuck slowly planned it all. He started by looking for a new apartment - he really wanted a balcony to have a bunch of plants. In the meanwhile, Hyuck was trying to understand if his complete lack of reaction to the fact that he was being cheated on was normal. If he stopped loving Mark a long time before he started feeling something was off or if it happened when he saw Yukhei kissing him inside that cab.

While he was figuring these things out, Donghyuck pretended all was well, as always. But now that he could clearly spot Yukhei’s smell in Mark, he thought that he too could probably fall in love with that perfume. Some days, when watching him sleep, Hyuck could capture his name and the coworker’s name leaving Mark’s mouth in mumbles. On other days, while Mark kissed his mouth and all of his body while saying that he loved him, Hyuck would think that it felt like he was kissing Yukhei too. When he touched Mark, it felt like he was touching the ghost of Yukhei’s touches on his skin. When Mark hugged Donghyuck before sleeping, he would think how the other man in Mark’s life probably had it all, how he probably was everything someone could look for in someone else. How Yukhei was probably just as beautiful up close as he was from far away. How he was probably perfect. Just like Mark.

On some days, Donghyuck would be caught by surprise by the crushing feelings of living a lie. He would shiver and feel like he couldn’t breath when he thought about what he was doing - like he was the one getting into someone else’s relationship and not the other way around. He felt dirty, empty and guilty. And then he would try to convince himself that he was not the one who cheated, not the one who went looking for another body and then he would slowly calm himself. He wasn’t the wrong one here. He didn’t do anything to deserve this and there was nothing he could have done to prevent it from happening. It wasn’t his fault. In reality he had nothing at all to feel guilty about.

It was a Friday when he woke up slowly and received a lovingly kiss on his forehead from Mark that always left earlier than him. After Mark left he called the lab and said he wasn’t feeling well and couldn’t go to work today and then Donghyuck started to pack his things. He cleaned the apartment completely, any trace that he lived there disappearing like he was never actually there. Then he put a letter on the counter, beside a sunflower and some assorted cookies he quickly ran to buy. Donghyuck hoped Mark would feel as empty and cold as the apartment was now, just like the feeling that lived in him for so long. He hoped Mark would look at the flower and the cookies and feel corrupted by guilt. He hoped he could never again look at a sunflower without feeling bad. He hoped he could never eat the assorted cookies from the bakery without feeling awful. And then Donghyuck called a cab and went to his new house that had a balcony full of plants and a big window facing the sun.


End file.
